What Happened to Fred?
by kylermalloy
Summary: The last we saw of Fred, he was running away from the Seattle coven to live as a nomad. Now see what happens when he meets the Cullens! Not much action, just talking. Pretty boring, but I thought it was a good idea!
1. A Chance Encounter

**Hello! This is my first story ever (and probably my last, 'cause this one sucks so bad) so if there's something you want to say about it, don't hesitate to criticize me, because I deserve it! Enjoy! **

**-KylerM**

**Oh, yeah: I don't own Twilight (thankfully!)**

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><p>A Chance Encounter<p>

_Splash!_ I cut off my air as I dove into the water, carrying two dead humans on my back. They were homeless, as per usual. I placed them under a rock the way I had been taught, almost a year ago.

When I surfaced again, I had been under for nearly two minutes, but I hadn't breathed. Now I took a deep breath, sniffing the air to make sure no one was near. Satisfied that my underwater feat hadn't been seen, I climbed fully out of the ocean and fled through the drowsy, pre-dawn town. I was on the city outskirts and into the woods in less than a minute. I had to clear out before the sun began to shine overhead. But I had a mind to watch the sunrise in a tree, implanting it forever in my infallible memory before I left the coast.

I followed my scent back into the woods, where I'd found a tree that gave me a clear view of the horizon. Before climbing it, though, I took my pack off my shoulders for my ritual. Every time I finished feeding in a town, I'd mark the town off a map I kept in my pack. I called it a ritual because, of course, it was completely unnecessary. I remembered the name and sight of every city I'd been in with perfect clarity. I didn't need a map. I didn't even need a _pack_. I didn't need to carry around food or clothes; I never got hungry or needed to shower. If my clothes got worn out or ruined somehow, I could lift some from a local store without leaving any trace. I didn't need to carry anything around.

I supposed I was still just grasping at anything that'd give me a sense of normalcy, decency even. Stupid human habits.

As I opened my pack, still mulling over my own idiocy, the wind shifted slightly, and I inhaled instinctively.

And I caught it.

My muscles tensed as my breath took in the familiar-but-not-familiar smell. I smelled it on myself every day, but this was different. It was… not me. It could only be another one. I threw up my shield. It always surrounded me, a protective aura, but I now extended it away from myself, surely leaving anyone in a ten-foot radius gasping in revulsion. The scent was fresh, brand-new, but I couldn't feel anyone. My eyes swept the scenery when I saw it.

Lurking half-hidden behind a tree, he stepped out into the light just as my eyes locked on him. I could see him. I could smell him. There was no question that he was real, that he was a vampire. But I couldn't _feel_ him. I intensified my shield, directing it right at him. But he stood still, never hinting that my gift was affecting him in any way. This was wrong. If I couldn't repulse an enemy, then I was dead. I never learned to fight; I kept everyone away from me with my mysterious power. And now it wasn't working. I whirled in the tiniest fraction of a second. Maybe, just maybe, I could outrun this vampire before he killed me. For what other reason would he seek me out, wait under my tree, except to dispose of me?

"Wait," he called.

_Why would I?_ I yelled back in my mind.

"Because I'm not a danger to you! Please, wait! Fred!"

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><p><strong>Gee, I wonder who this other vampire could be! BIG mystery!<strong>

**So now you get to tell me how stupid and boring I am, or just click off my story in disgust! **

**Thank you for reading KylerM.**


	2. A Snap Decision

**I am **_**not**_** going to post that stupid disclaimer up here every chapter, so if you're curious about my rights, check it out in Chapter 1.**

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><p>A Snap Decision<p>

I froze. Did he just call me Fred? Of course, that was my name, but I spoke to no one, and I wasn't one of those idiots who talks to himself, so I had not been called Fred for a very long time. The last person who called me that was… Bree.

My dead heart seemed to squeeze. That sweet, scared little vampire. She had said my name once, during our first and only conversation, where she promised to meet up with me. She never did. Had she been killed? Could she not find me? Had she betrayed me and sent others to look for me? Was that who called my name? A friend of Riley's? The scary vampires Bree had told me about, who killed others? The only way to know who exactly was chasing me was to turn around.

The other vampire stood motionless, in a relaxed stance. He looked to be about my age, though that said nothing. He had tousled auburn hair. His eyes were dark, almost black. But unless it was my imagination, what little color was there seemed more yellow than red.

Yellow? I had never seen a yellow-eyed vampire before, but of course we'd heard about them. The seven vampires with yellow, weakened eyes and a pet human, who had wanted to kill my former coven. Or so Riley said. Riley had lied about other things. Why not this? The vampire staring at me did not look aggressive; he still looked pleading. His palms were half up, a peaceful gesture. But… how was he resisting my shield? I hadn't moved it, or even decreased its intensity.

"I don't want to hurt you. But I want to talk to you. Please, drop your shield. It won't harm me."

I hadn't spoken since I saw him. But now, somehow, my lips formed words. "How did you know I had a shield?"

"I can read your mind."

My breath caught. The yellow-eyes were supposed to be talented. The only talent Riley had told us about in particular was a mind reader. The thought of someone inside my head, reading the thoughts I was having right now, was rather unnerving. Especially if I still counted that person as my enemy.

"I'm not your enemy. You have to trust me. Drop your shield. I know you're scared, but I promise I will not hurt you."

I still did not drop my aura of revulsion. "Who are you?"

"My name is Edward Cullen."

"How are you resisting my shield? No one's ever been able to do that before."

Edward smiled. "Bella?"

I heard the almost imperceptible sounds of another vampire approaching. I again directed my shield toward the new threat, but again, I felt no presence. I stared at the other vampire. It was a female, around my age, with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes weren't quite as dark, and I could tell there was more red than yellow in her eyes. She must have been younger than Edward for her eyes to still be red.

"Yes, she is younger, but our eyes aren't yellow because we're old," Edward answered my thought. "We drink animal blood."

The female vampire looked at me with intensity. "You can't hurt him or me," she told me in a quiet voice. "I've got my shield around him, and yours isn't strong enough to penetrate it."

So the female had a shield of her own, and she was protecting herself and Edward with it. But that didn't make me any more comfortable talking to them.

"Here. Bella, drop your shield, and Fred, you drop yours. We'll be susceptible to you, Fred, and any time you feel threatened, you can incapacitate us," Edward said gently to both of us. I carefully retracted my shield, away from them and into myself. At the same time, I felt both of their presences, Edward's and Bella's. And I could sense their feelings for each other. As I could control how people felt toward me, I could also gauge levels of attraction and repulsion. I had never felt a stronger sense of attraction than these two had for each other.

"Fred, we'd like you to come to our house with us," Bella said in her quiet, reasonable voice. "Our whole family would like to meet you."

The whole yellow-eyed coven? They wanted to meet me? But how did they even know...

"Bree thought of you."

Bree? They met her? Was she the one who sent them looking for me?

"No." Edward sounded regretful. "She thought of you and your scent before she died. The Volturi killed her."

Bree was dead. My chest contracted. I wasn't sure what I'd felt for her, but I cared about her more than anyone else I knew. We'd split up, and she'd promised to meet me in Vancouver. When she hadn't shown up, I'd waited an extra day, hoping that she'd just been delayed. She hadn't come, and I'd taken off into the water so no one could find me.

She hadn't come because she was dead.

"Who are these Volturi?" I spat out. I wanted to find them, make them pay for killing my only friend in this life. "Where are they?"

"They live in Italy. And don't think about trying to destroy them," Bella warned me. "They're even more powerful than we are."

"If you'd like us to explain more fully, we can," Edward offered. He gestured with his head that I should follow them.

Going with these vampires who didn't drink human blood did not appeal to me; however, the lure of answers was very tempting. And if I needed space, they were defenseless...

"Yes, that's right. We're completely vulnerable to you," Edward answered my thoughts. "I promise you're safe."

I hesitated a moment, then nodded.

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><p><strong>Oooh yay! Isn't this sooo exciting?<strong>

**Just somebody tell me, and I will promise to never contaminate the Internet with my horrible made-up stuff ever again!**

**Oh and if you're reviewing, please don't use swear words. If you do I will block you, find out who you are, and assassinate you with a blunt knife. :)**

**Thank you for reading KylerM.**


	3. A Formal Introduction

**Ugh. All my chapters are sooo short. I need a new hobby.**

**So, yay, time-filler. Here goes. R&Review-my-awfulness!**

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><p>A Formal Introduction<p>

I quickly slung my pack over my shoulders, keeping the name of the town I'd just left in my mind so I could cross it off later.

What was I doing?

In my year of wandering, I'd never even smelled another vampire, let alone met and talked to any. And now here I was, ready to follow them to an unknown destination. Talk about irony.

"Ready, Fred?" Bella asked me, a playful glint in her eyes. She took Edward's hand and they disappeared into the trees again. A split second after, that, I was following, running hard to keep up with the couple, who ran easily hand in hand.

I was nervous. There was no way I couldn't be. What if the rest of the yellow-eyed coven was more hostile to me? What if they weren't and I attacked them? If I killed their pet human by accident, would they kill me?

"There is no pet human anymore," Edward once again had heard my concerns and was reassuring them. "Bella, let Fred catch your scent."

Bella turned her body sideways, and I inhaled deeply. There was something familiar about the smell, though it had been more appetizing the last time I'd smelled it. Was Bella...?

"I'm still waiting for that red shirt back," Bella scolded, but there was half smile playing on her lips. "It's not your fault you were going to kill me."

"He never would have," Edward murmured to her. "He always planned on taking off."

Absolutely right. I'd never liked my coven, always despised the arrogance of all its members. When Riley had announced that I was to be used as a weapon, I had immediately honed my plan of running off. I wasn't going to be a pawn.

"I have to warn you." Edward was speaking quietly, as though to exclude his mate. "There will be some... non-vampires there. They might tempt you a bit, but they're not human. You should be able to resist."

Not vampires and yet not human? I tried asking a direct question in my thoughts. _What else is there?_

"You might not want to know."

I was getting good at this communication. I still didn't feel totally comfortable speaking, so I simply asked my questions through my thoughts. Thankfully, though, Edward wasn't responding aloud to everything that ran through my head. My fear, for instance.

We ran for maybe twenty more minutes, going farther north into Washington, into the Olympic Peninsula. I started to panic: Wasn't this where my Seattle coven was headed? Were they there now, waiting for me? Was all this a trap?

I began to slip back into my cloud of paranoia and mistrust. I slowed, ready to tell them I couldn't do it, that I'd have to go, and then... I felt calmer. My fear melted away. I felt relaxed, almost at ease. "What—"

Edward looked at me, reassurance all over his face. "Your former coven is all dead. You are the last one."

_Did you do that?_ I asked him in my mind. _All the sudden I just got really calm._

Edward chuckled, a grin wide on his face. "No, that was Jasper, our brother. He and Alice must have come to greet us."

"You found him!" A small female vampire with short, spiky hair darted out from behind a tree and stopped in front of us. "Of course, I knew you would."

"You knew they would find him. You just weren't sure they'd be able to bring him here." Another vampire, a male, materialized from the forest. He was tall, with long blond hair, and his skin was covered with scars. He smiled ruefully at me. "Sorry about having to calm you down. I could tell you would have backed out."

Wait. Calmed me down?

"Fred, Jasper and Alice," Edward introduced us. "And yes, Jasper calmed you down. He has the ability to control emotions, and Alice can see the future."

Gee. A psychic and a psychologist. What a match.

Edward laughed once, and then turned. "We're nearly there."

Within a few more minutes, we were out of the woods and we had jumped over a wide river. Now we faced a large, white three-story house with a glass wall.

I sensed something moving in the woods. A human? No, the heartbeat was different. And the smell… I wrinkled my nose.

Bella laughed. "Come on out, Jake. You don't have to hide."

Slowly a large wolf emerged from the trees. Was it their pet? Highly unlikely for animal hunters. The large reddish brown wolf eyed me with distrust. It seemed too intelligent for a mere animal. And on its back was… I gasped and stopped breathing. On the wolf's back was a small girl, about five or six years old. Her cheeks were rosy, and I could hear her heartbeat.

"It's all right, Fred. Nessie is not fully human." Edward tried to reassure me while Bella stepped forward to the wolf and held her arms out. The little girl jumped from the wolf's back into Bella's arms.

"Momma, is this him?" she asked Bella.

I stiffened. "Wait. You're her…mother?"

Bella nodded.

I turned to Edward. "So that makes you her father. How…"

Edward cast a glance at Bella. Her eyes were fixated on the ground. I was sure that if vampires could blush, she would have. "It's… a long story," Bella said, biting her lip. "Why don't you come in, and we'll tell it to you."

As we entered the house, I couldn't help but stare. These vampires lived so… so… cozily. How on earth did they manage it?

"Fred! I'm so glad you're here!" A female vampire with light brown hair was standing in the huge room. She approached us at an unnaturally slow pace. "I've wanted to meet you for a while, ever since Edward informed me about you."

"This is our mother, Esme," Edward said, gesturing to the woman. "And that's her husband, Carlisle." Another vampire, a young man with blond hair, was descending the fancy staircase.

"Hello. You must be Fred," Carlisle said in a calming voice. It wasn't like before, with Jasper's talent, but the sound of this man's voice made me feel more at ease.

I quickly counted through all the vampires I'd met so far. There were supposed to be seven—well, eight, with Bella. Carlisle and Esme, Alice, Jasper, Edward, and Bella made six. I wasn't sure if the pet wolf and the half-vampire girl counted.

"Uh-oh! Edward brought home trouble!" A booming voice came from another room and entered the large front room. The speaker was a huge male vampire with dark, curly hair. At his side was a female vampire with long blond hair. I blinked at the new female and looked at her again. She was seriously pretty.

"She's taken," Edward advised quietly.

"Who, Rose? Yeah, she's taken. If you want her, you'll have to get through me first," the big vampire laughed. "I'm Emmett."

"Fred."

"Oh, I know. And don't try that whole 'gross out' thing on me, man. It would _not_ be pretty."

"Fred, please step carefully around here," Esme directed. "We're renovating the upper floors now, and a hard step could send something through the ceiling."

"That would be painful, wouldn't it?" Emmett taunted.

He strode to the long white couch where Alice and Jasper already sat, and moved to flop carelessly onto one end only to land on Jasper's hand. Emmett twisted to face Jasper, his face both apologetic and amused.

I braced for the worst; I knew vampires tended to lash out when annoyed. Jasper, however, merely chuckled and scooted over so there was room for all four of them on the couch.

I was quietly amazed at how human these vampires acted. I recalled a similar incident that had occurred when I lived in Seattle. A vampire named Matt had plunked down onto a couch, nearly crushing volatile Sara's hand. Matt ended up a pile of ashes within minutes. Emmett and Jasper, though, had worked it out without even saying anything.

"So, Fred, would you tell us your story?" Edward asked. He motioned to a seat across from where he, Bella, and the little girl—Nessie—sat. "Then we'll tell you ours." I took the seat, though I would be as comfortable standing up. Then I began my story.

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><p><strong>So (why do I always start with so?) here I go into unknown territory. Exploring Fred's past...<strong>

**Unfortunately, this idea I had didn't go any further than those first two chapters in the woods. Now, I'm on a rambling path to who-knows-where! Won't it be fun? Stick around if you like to torture yourself with my writing!**

**I'm posting all these chapters one after the other, and they haven't even gone out on the website for the whole world to scorn, so I've got no idea of the response I'll get. Unfortunately, I have nothing else to do, and patience isn't my strong quality.**

**Oh, well. Thank you for- nope, forget it. That's boring even if my story isn't.**

****Okay, I'll shut up now. Thanks for reading KylerM!****


	4. A Narrative

**Is this my longest chapter?**

**No, the last one was. Dang it... But it's here anyway, even though no one wants it.**

****As usual, if you have anything negative to say about this, feel free to review!****

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><p>A Narrative<p>

"My full name is Fredrick Nicholas Douglas. Yes, like the abolitionist. I don't know why.

"I was nineteen years old when I was... changed. I had just gotten kicked out of college because I couldn't afford to pay my tuition."

Thinking about my human years was difficult. Not because they were painful to remember—although they were—but because human memories were fuzzy, indistinct. Compared with my memory now, fresh, sharp, and perfectly distinct, human memories could be nothing but a dream.

"I'd run away from my mom's house the night that Riley found me."

I swallowed hard. My mom. She was the sweetest, most compassionate person I knew. If only…

I reminded myself that Edward was listening and forced myself to continue the story. "Actually, some of Riley's gang, two guys named Raoul and Kevin, found me. They were going to kill me, but I tried to talk them into leaving.

"I had the sort of personality that made everyone ignore me, and that was the way I liked it. If anyone ever did pay attention to me, I just had to say something, and they would go away."

"A latent talent," Bella broke in. "It was there, relatively powerful, even when you were human. That's how my talent came about, too."

"And how it resulted in Renesmee's talent," Edward said.

The little girl had a talent? But she wasn't a vampire; I could hear her rather fast heartbeat.

"Go on, show Fred."

Renesmee—where on earth did that name come from?—leapt lightly off the couch and stepped toward me. "This might be a little shocking," she told me in a clear, high voice that didn't sound like a six-year-old at all. Then she reached out and touched my face.

I gasped. There was suddenly a new image in my head, like a memory, but _I_ was in the memory. I watched myself emerge from the woods, slightly behind Edward and Bella. Hands that were not mine tightened on thick fur as my memory-self whipped around, looking agitated.

"_Come on out, Jake. You don't have to hide."_ I heard Bella's voice, exactly what she had said a few minutes ago, and through Renesmee's eyes, we came closer to the three of us, until Bella stepped forward, her arms out, and the memory faded.

What the heck?

_That was my memory,_ I heard the mental version of the little girl's sensible voice. _I have the ability to show other people my thoughts. It's the opposite of what Daddy can do._

_How come you sound so…mature? _I asked her in my mind. _You don't act like you're six._

No answer. I guessed that Renesmee could only show her thoughts, not hear others'.

Edward, however, still heard me. "Nessie, Fred thinks you're six," he said, a teasing note in his voice.

She turned toward me, an incredulous expression on her face. I waited for her to tell me she was seven or something.

"I'm not six," she said softly. "I'm not even one."

Whoa, whoa. Time out. This little kindergarten-age kid was less than a year old? How was that _possible_?

"It's part of the story," Edward said to me. "If you would proceed with yours?"

I started back where I left off, trying fiercely not to think of my mom. "Well, I made Kevin and Raoul back off, and then suddenly Riley was there. He looked at me with this weird expression, then said, 'Nobody touch this one,' like I was special. The next thing I knew, Riley was carrying me on his shoulder to this little house. There was a vampire there, a female. I tried to get her to go away, but she bit me.

"I don't remember much after that, until Riley was telling me about vampires and everything. But he never told me who the other one was, the one who created me."

I suppressed a shudder. My creator. I had never found out who she was, nor did I want to. What little I ever heard from her told me that she enjoyed inflicting pain on me and anyone else she bit. She was immune to my power, and without my power, I felt too open, exposed. How ironic of me to sit here and think that.

No, it wasn't ironic. These vampires were different. Before today, I'd figured there was no way I could ever fully trust anyone again, since I could only associate with people able to kill me. And yet… Sitting in a house full of vampires with gifts that made mine useless, I was relaxed. I was telling my life story to vampires I had met probably less than an hour ago. I supposed I was supposed to blame that on Jasper.

"Your creator's name was Victoria," Carlisle said. "We've met her as well."

Had they? Our stories must have been more intertwined than I thought. Did they know where she was now? Was she looking for me?

"She's dead too," Edward answered.

It seemed this coven knew of, if not was responsible for, the deaths of all my enemies. I was indebted to them.

"I started my new life after that, keeping all the vampires away from me with my talent. A few months after me, Bree came along. We never really talked, but she and I sat together during the day. Riley told us that we burned in the sun, so our whole coven holed up in a basement every day.

"Three months after Bree came on board, we were told that there was an enemy that we had to eliminate."

"The enemy being us," Bella said softly.

"Sorry," I told her. "We were…brainwashed."

"Yeah," she said. "I heard what Bree said, even though I was human then."

"Well, Riley wanted to use me as a weapon in the fight, but I wasn't having that. So on our way to…destroy you, I told Bree good-bye, told her where to meet me. She said she wanted to get another of her friends out of the fight, then she'd come. But she never did."

I remembered her running away from me, her face more alight and hopeful than I'd ever seen it. Then somewhere in there, she'd been killed.

I forced myself away from the topic of Bree and continued with my chronicles. "I hunted a little in Canada, but I came back to the States eventually. Since then, I've just…wandered. I spent some time in Oregon and Idaho, but I've lived in Washington my whole life. It just feels right here."

I lowered my head. That was all I was going to say. I could have said a lot more, about my mom and—

I shut that thought down. I didn't want to talk about my mom. I missed her too much.

"That's pretty much it. Did you want to tell me your story?"

Edward answered for everyone, because of course he heard everyone's answer. "If you would like to hear it."

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><p><strong>I hate my tendency to end chapters on those lame lines, like, "Let's do this now," or "Now we're going to do that!" Yeah, just another reason why I'm never going to be a writer. I SUCK!<strong>

**Anyway,**

**Thank you for reading KylerM.**


	5. A Family Chronicle

**Okay, so this is part of the Cullens' story. We've all heard it before. I tried to condense it as much as possible, but then I wanted Fred to have some time for reactions. But I'm not good with either! Just...grit your teeth and ride it out! It'll get better...maybe...**

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><p>A Family Chronicle<p>

"It all started with Carlisle," Edward began. "He doesn't know the exact date of when he was changed, but he believes it was sometime around 1660. He was leading a raid on the vampires in London, and one of them attacked."

"Over time, I developed my philosophy of hunting animals rather than humans." Carlisle inserted. "After several centuries, I came to the United States, where I found Edward, and later, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett."

"Of course, Alice and Jasper came to us on their own, like teenage runaways," Emmett teased.

Alice smirked. I guessed there was a story there, too.

Wanting to hear more about Bella's days as a pet human, I asked, "What about Bella? And Renesmee?"

"Well," Edward said, "Bella moved to Forks, Washington when she was seventeen. She had lived with her mother, but she wanted to spend some time with her father, who is the chief of police here.

"We all attended high school then, and it was then that I realized that Bella's blood so appealed to me."

So he'd bitten her, and changed her into a vampire. But how did their daughter come into the picture? I didn't think vampires could have children.

"We can't," Edward said. "And Bella's changing didn't happen like that, either. I was able to resist her scent enough to get to know her, and then I realized… I loved her."

Bella reached out and took Edward's hand. He smiled at her.

"Not long after that, a group of nomads came near here. One of them was Victoria." Edward nodded at me. "Your creator."

"Her mate was a tracker, named James," Bella inserted. She shivered slightly. "He tried to kill me, and he almost did."

She traced a white crescent shape on her wrist. "He bit me."

So Edward hadn't changed her. But it still didn't explain Renesmee.

"Stop jumping to conclusions." Edward sounded amused. "Bella wasn't changed until much later."

But if this James had bitten her, how could she have remained human?

"I… was able to suck the venom out of her system before she was changed," Edward answered.

How on earth was he able to do that? I couldn't fathom the control it would take to voluntarily stop drinking blood. Doing so was impossible to me.

"I honestly don't know," Edward said.

I wondered how Bella had reacted when she'd discovered Edward was a vampire. Had she been scared? Astonished? Disbelieving, as I had been?

"Actually, she took it very well," Edward said, trying not to laugh. "I expected her to run in the opposite direction of me when she found out, but she might have fallen down if she did that."

Huh?

"Bella was very clumsy when she was human," Emmett broke in. He, too, was holding back laughter. "She fell off a cliff once."

"I did not fall, Emmett," Bella snapped. "I jumped."

"_Suicidal_," Emmett whispered.

"I was _swimming_," Bella insisted. "And the fall was fun. The currents were the hard part."

"Wait," I interrupted. "She jumped off a _cliff_? Why?"

"Because…" Bella didn't seem to want to continue.

"I left her," Edward said bluntly. "We moved on, but I left her here. I thought she would be safer."

Bella squeezed his hand reassuringly. "You did what you thought was right."

"While we were gone, Bella started hanging with dogs," Emmett said, grinning.

"Dogs?" I asked.

"They're _wolves_," Bella said defensively. "They were vampires' enemies."

"Wolves?" I didn't understand what exactly they were getting at.

"Werewolves," Bella explained. "Only they're not like werewolves in movies. They can shape-shift whenever they want, and they heal really fast, too."

_More_ supernatural creatures? Just what I needed. "Can they… kill vampires?" I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

"Yes, if they're fast enough," Bella said. She seemed to be the expert on werewolves. "But the only pack we know of has a truce with us. We don't fight. In fact, we protect each other."

"I can't see them," Alice said, speaking for the first time since the storytelling began. She'd mostly sat back with her eyes closed, like she was sleeping.

"Yes, and it drives you nuts," Bella snickered, shooting a grin at her sister.

"With the wolves' help, Bella learned of Victoria's grudge," Edward said quietly. He seemed to be trying to quickly finish the part in the story when he'd been gone.

"What grudge?" Did this have something to do with us—the army she created?

"Victoria wanted revenge for the death of her mate," Edward said, his jaw tight. "So, instead of killing me, who killed James, she tried to kill Bella. Mate for mate."

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><p><strong>Sorry I cut off at such an awkward place, but that was a good place to pause in the story, because the next chapter is not more redundant material. Surprise! <strong>

**Last time I checked (quite a while ago), there were ten people who reviewed. So, thank you! But I'm getting a big head from all the positive comments. Constructive critcism, people! **

**-KylerM**


	6. A Humane Experience

**I'm actually excited about this chapter, even though it does nothing to move the story forward.**

**But I was able to write over fifteen-hundred words in one sitting!**

**Give my distractible, uninspired self a hand!**

**...**

**Okay, then.**

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><p>A "Humane" Experience<p>

At that moment we became aware of a car approaching the house.

"Oh," Bella whispered. "Charlie?"

Edward concentrated, then nodded. The rest of the Cullens looked at me in alarm. "What?" I asked, wondering what I had done. "Who is that?"

"Charlie," Bella said again. "My dad. He's _human_."

Oh, great. How was I supposed to deal with a _human_? I shot to my feet and looked wildly around for an escape.

"The back door's blocked," Alice was saying. "We put all of our furniture from upstairs in front of it, and we can't move it in a hurry without breaking something."

The sounds of the car engine stopped, and a car door opened and closed.

"Even Charlie would notice if he went out the front door," Edward murmured.

Footsteps sounded, walking up the path to the porch.

"Go!" Bella hissed at me. "Hide in one of the back rooms, and _don't breathe_!"

I streaked to the small doorway that led to the other rooms on the first floor. I wrenched it open and burst through the first door I saw. I locked it behind me and leaned against it, relieved. Then I stiffened.

There was someone_ in there_.

He wasn't a vampire; his dark skin was testament enough. The boy was sprawled on the floor of the bathroom, half propped against the wall, snoring quietly. Why he was napping in the bathroom, I didn't know. But one thing was clear: If Bella, so concerned for her human father's safety, knew of the human boy sleeping back here, she would have sent me somewhere else, where I couldn't detect his heartbeat. They somehow had not known that he was here. And I had to find out.

"Who are you?" I hissed, my fist to his throat. I could feel the blood pumping beneath his skin, but his smell was so repulsive that his pulse under my fingers was tolerable.

He jolted awake, his eyes searching the room for a brief second before turning his eyes to me.

"Sheesh, man, what are you doing?"

"Who are you?" I repeated, making my voice menacing.

"Calm down, dude! It's just me, Jake! The wolf!"

The _wolf_?

Oh. I remembered the wolf, with his red-brown fur and his horrible scent, which matched the skin and the smell of this boy here. But how was this human kid able to become a wolf?

"Are you one of the… werewolves that Edward talked about?" I asked tentatively.

"Aw, man, did he already get to that part? I wanted to listen, see if he told the story _honestly_. He didn't like me much back then. And he really doesn't like talking about that time."

"I know." I could sense that neither Bella nor Edward had been comfortable with discussing their time apart.

"So, what are you doing in here? Nessie and I are the only ones who use this place." Jake's mouth pulled up at one corner.

"Bella's father came over. I… had to hide, and I didn't know this was the bathroom."

Jake frowned. "Charlie? Usually he calls before he comes over. Guess he forgot."

Then I heard another heartbeat. It wasn't Renesmee's heartbeat, light and quick, or Jake's, tempered with an unappealing scent. It was fully human. I stopped breathing. Jake and I listened as the other vampires greeted him.

"Hey, everybody! How's the remodeling going? Bella! How are you?"

"Fine, Dad. I didn't know you were coming over today."

"Well, I wasn't really planning on it. I've got an announcement to make."

"Let's hear it, then."

"Hang on just a minute." I could hear the gleeful tone in the human's voice, excited at keeping them in suspense. Except for Edward, of course. "I just need to step into the bathroom for a minute. 'Scuse me."

Oh, no. I fought my urge to gasp in horror. The human was coming into the same room as I was in. And worse, he would see me. I looked around wildly, searching for a place to hide. The shower had no curtain, just a sliding glass door. The cabinets were too small for me to climb into. And I couldn't just scramble behind the door; Charlie would surely shut it. Also, what about the stinky wolf?

"Oh, wait, Charlie," Alice chimed. "Fred's in there."

_WHAT?!_ Was Alice crazy? How could she tell a human about me? And in such a way that I would have to meet him?

"Why did she say that?" I demanded of Jake. "Why couldn't she just say you were in here?"

"Alice can't see me, remember?" Jake said. "Go on, get out there. While you're distracting him, I'll slip out."

"Who's Fred?" I heard the human ask.

"One of my friends from Dartmouth," Emmett said smoothly. "He lives in Seattle, and he came up to meet everyone this summer."

"I can't talk to him!" I hissed, panicking again as I tasted the human's scent leaking in under the door. "And I'm too much _like_ them! He'll notice something's up, especially with my eyes."

"Here." Jake rummaged in a cabinet and tossed me a box of brown-tinted contacts. I hurriedly put some in.

"Put your hair in your eyes so he won't see too much of your skin," Jake instructed. "And don't let him touch you. Don't sit too still, and move slowly."

I shook my wavy blond hair in my face, grateful that I'd never cut it. I made sure my sweatshirt fully covered my hands, then looked back at Jake.

The werewolf gave me an encouraging half-smile. "You can do it." He pressed the lever on the toilet so that the flushing sound carried to the other room.

I tried to move at human pace as I pushed the door handle down and emerged from the bathroom. Trying not to breathe, I stepped toward the slightly paunchy human with receding brown, curly hair.

"Hi," I said. "Who's this?"

"This is my dad," Bella answered.

"Oh. Hello, sir. I'm Fred—McDougal." I couldn't give him my real last name; I never knew if I'd been reported missing in Seattle, and if I had, the chief of police here might have heard of me.

"Nice to meet you, Fred. Charlie Swan." He held out his hand.

I looked down at his hand. I couldn't touch it. For one, he would feel my cold skin. And I wasn't sure I could shake it anyway, without breaking it.

Then I heard Edward whisper something to me from across the room, too low for Charlie to hear. I caught on.

"I can't shake your hand, sir. I have myotonic dystrophy."

Charlie looked confused. "What's that?"

I answered him, repeating the script that Edward was feeding to me. "It's a genetic disorder. I can't relax my muscles very fast, so I try to avoid shaking people's hands. When I graduated last week, I had to shake the professor's hand for five minutes." I added a little laugh, trying not to take breaths through my nose.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that, Fred. Nice to meet you, anyway."

"You, too." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jake easing the bathroom door open, quietly tiptoeing out.

"Well, if you're done in the bathroom, I'm going to have a turn."

Charlie stepped into the recently vacated bathroom and closed the door. I pitched my voice so he wouldn't hear. "Why didn't you warn me that Jake was in the bathroom?"

"I was concentrated on Charlie," Edward said calmly. "I can't hear his mind very well. That's why I can't hear Bella's at all, unless she lets me."

Bella shot Edward an impish grin. I guessed that since she had to let her guard down for me, she was also letting her guard down for her mate.

"So what's Charlie's surprise?" Bella asked.

"I can't tell exactly, but I could tell he was happy. Very happy," Edward said.

A few minutes later, Charlie emerged from the bathroom. Without preamble, he blurted, "I proposed to Sue!"

I didn't know who Sue was, but the whole vampire coven looked shocked and happy.

"Dad, that's wonderful!" Bella cried, hugging him gently. "I'm so happy for you! She said yes, right?" she looked worried for a moment, as if her happiness had been uncalled for.

"Of course she did," Charlie chortled. "We haven't exactly decided on a date yet, but it'll be by the end of this year for sure."

"Congratulations, Charlie," Carlisle shook the human's hand. Why couldn't I do that?

"Would you like to stay for a while?" Esme invited. "I can make you some lunch."

"No, no," Charlie said affably. "I'd like to get back down to La Push. Good to see you all. And Fred, don't cause trouble."

We all laughed quietly as Charlie shut the door. "I'll hunt out of state," I said to no one in particular.

"Speaking of which, Fred, would you like to take a hunting break?" Edward asked me. "Not around here, of course, but we understand if you're thirsty."

I assessed my thirst. It hadn't even been a day since I hunted, but my throat was already burning again. However, I hadn't even thought about it until hunting was brought up. I didn't know I could do that.

No, the burn in my throat could wait. For once, I had something else to do. "Nope," I replied lightly. "I'm good."

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><p><strong>When I first heard about myotonic dystrophy, I thought, "That would be the best excuse not to ever shake anyone's hand!" (If anybody out there has it, I'm sorry if I'm offending you.) Then, when I had this idea of Charlie meeting Fred, I <em>had<em> to put it in! There's still a fifteen-year-old biology geek in me somewhere...**

**Right now I'm suffering-for no reason-from one of the worst ailments ever: apathy! So...sorry if my story seems slow.**

**Alliteration!**

**_There's_ the fifteen-year-old English geek in me!**

**Thank you for reading KylerM.**


	7. An Epiphany

**This chapter was _really _hard to write, for some reason.**

**I suppose the difficulty was in tempering re-hashed material with Fred's _new_, _fresh_ thoughts on the story. I don't know if I was successful.**

**As always, tell me how you hate it! Or how I can change it to make it bearable (delete it).**

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><p>An Epiphany<p>

"I'm sorry about Charlie," Edward apologized needlessly. "I can never tell exactly what he's thinking, and there weren't many options for you."

"Not your fault." It was entirely true. The coven's panic when Charlie arrived was really unnecessary. I _could_ control myself around humans, but I was haunted by the last time I'd tried to converse with one…

No. I wouldn't think about that, not now. To distract myself and to return to the Cullens' intriguing story, I asked, "So, Victoria was after Bella?"

"Yes," Edward looked uncomfortable again. "Some…events occurred—"

"Alice saw me jump off the cliff," Bella was speaking so fast I could hardly keep up. "She thought I had died, and she told Edward, who was determined not to live if I didn't.

"He went to the Volturi."

Finally, the famous Volturi that I'd been dying to hear about.

"They are the law enforcers, the ruling class," Edward explained.

"With formidable talents," Bella added. "They aren't easily defeated in battle."

"No, but Bella's talent negates theirs," Alice interjected. "If we fought them, we would win."

Bella looked down humbly as I looked over at her in amazement. I wasn't surprised that she was able to block me, but the most powerful vampires in the world? Jeez.

"I asked the Volturi to kill me, but Bella arrived before they could succeed."

"When we got back, Edward finally agreed to change me," Bella said.

"And I was absolutely livid," Jake chimed in. He gave me a lopsided smile as he entered the big room. Renesmee hopped down from between her parents and went straight to Jake. He scooped her up and held her tight against him.

"How did you get in our house?" Bella demanded playfully.

Jake shot her a rascally grin. "A window."

"Heard of knocking?"

"I'd break a window if I knocked on it."

Bella shot to her feet and whapped Jake on the head, lightly, but he grimaced.

"_Ow."_

Obviously Bella and Jake had a good rapport going. I wondered where they'd gotten it from, if vampires and wolves were supposed to be enemies.

Bella flitted back to her seat and took in my confused expression. "At that point, Jake was a candidate for me, too," she said, both continuing the story and answering my unasked question. "In the midst of _that_ drama…" she looked at me mischievously. "Enter your Seattle coven."

Now our quest a year ago made sense. We weren't getting rid of hunting competition, which had never quite added up to me; we were just trying to kill Bella and as many of the Cullens as we could. Revenge was the only motivation.

I only had one question about my former coven. "What happened to Bree?"

"Carlisle met her first," Edward said, looking at his young father.

The patriarch of the coven looked weary as he took up the story. "When your coven attacked, we'd prepared to make the fight as brief and safe for us as possible. Bree was one of the last to arrive, and I caught her running away.

"She surrendered to us. We didn't want to kill someone who wasn't trying to kill us, so we put her in Jasper's care. He has the most experience with newborns."

I glanced over at Jasper. Now his scars, arrayed all over his body, made sense. When all the young vampires in Seattle gathered, there was a fair amount of bickering—and biting.

Carlisle continued. "After the fight was over, a few members of the Volturi guard came. They wanted every loose end tied up. They insisted that the 'job be fully finished.'" He spoke the last words with distaste, as if he didn't agree with them at all.

My throat got heavy somehow, like I was about to cry. "So they just killed her."

"Yes," Edward said, his voice full of sorrow. "She had figured out that I could read her mind, and she was communicating with me. Right before they…before she died, she wondered if we would ever come across you. She asked us to 'be nice to you, please.' So once we were…free of other obligations, I brought you up, and we unanimously wanted to find you and meet you. We've been searching for most of this year."

"What other obligations?" I asked. They had to have been pretty hefty, since apparently six or seven months had been between their fight with Victoria's army and their search for me.

"Nuptials, of course!" Jake called from his chair in the corner. Renesmee, the year-old kindergartener, sat on his lap.

Of course. The resolution of the triangle of sorts between Edward, Bella, and Jacob. What had happened to the werewolf to put him at peace…and so attached to the little girl?

"Yes, then Edward and I got married, and we…had Renesmee." Bella and Edward both glanced toward their daughter, love and adoration apparent on their faces.

My mom used to look at me that way.

I forced myself to listen to what Bella was saying. "She grew very quickly. I had her within a month of her conception. Jake was here when she was born."

"And…what?" I asked, still confused.

Bella continued. "Werewolves have this thing called imprinting. When they meet their soul mate, nothing else in the world matters to them. Jacob imprinted on Renesmee just after she was born."

"Soul mate?" I broke in, the pieces not quite adding up. "Like, you two?" I indicated Bella and Edward. I could understand two teenagers, even if one was immortal, falling for each other. But a teenager and a _baby?_ That was just gross.

"Werewolves don't age," Edward said. "Jacob's as good as immortal, too. Soon he and Nessie will be the same age."

Ah. Now everything made sense.

"We might have had our happy ending there, but of course something had to go down," Bella said ruefully.

"Yes, because you two just had to have a baby," Emmett spoke up for the first time in a while, his face alight with mischief again. Whenever he spoke—teased; he was always teasing—he seemed to lighten the atmosphere. Comic relief, straight from an English textbook.

"An acquaintance of ours mistook Renesmee for a vampire child, uncontrollable and unteachable," Edward said, shooting Emmett an "I-love-you-but-shut-up" look. "She informed the Volturi, and they began planning a massive, crushing offensive against us.

I couldn't imagine what our coven would do it they were faced with a looming attack from all-powerful vampires. They'd probably scatter, the self-preserving cowards.

But wouldn't anyone? I supposed I would, too.

"We didn't want to fight, so we invited all our acquaintances to come and face the Volturi with us." Edward was still talking. "We asked them to witness that Renesmee wasn't dangerous, but most of them pledged to still stand with us if the Volturi actually attacked."

Wait. They hadn't run? I had always thought that the survival instinct was foremost in a vampire's mind. I knew for sure that members of my own coven from Seattle would turn on each other in an instant to protect themselves. And if an enemy came here, to attack the Cullens, I would abandon them, even though I was beginning to like and respect them.

I'd thought that the self-preservation instinct was unavoidable. I thought vampires would always sacrifice someone else before themselves.

I'd thought, I'd thought, I'd thought…

I was wrong.

The Cullens weren't a coven. They were a _family_. They would all put themselves in harm's way if one of them was in danger.

"Fortunately, it didn't come to a fight. We forced the Volturi to see that Renesmee wasn't dangerous, that we were no threat. And they retreated."

Self-preservation. Alice had said earlier that because of Bella's talent, the Volturi had no special gifts against the Cullens. The most powerful vampires in the world had balked at the chance to destroy immensely potent gifts because they were _afraid to lose_.

The most _powerful vampires in the world_ had backed down, but the Cullens wouldn't.

Why was that? What made them so different?

I could only think of one thing.

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><p><strong>I wanted the storytelling to have some impact on Fred and his philosophy. Does this seem plausible?<strong>

**I'll bet you're sick and tired of hearing these stories over again. Well, I'm happy to say that the next chapter WON'T be something we all already know! I'll actually have to use my imagination! (This could get _really_ horrifying!)**

**As always,**

**Thank you for reading KylerM.**


	8. A Filled Gap

**And here we are! If you've stayed on board, I want to congratulate you! I know, reading my dumpster-food isn't easy.**

**Half of this chapter was really hard to write. The other half was super easy; I barely changed a thing.**

**So...enjoy!**

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><p>A Filled Gap<p>

"That's our story," Edward concluded.

"Oh," I said lamely, unable to think of anything to say. I couldn't comprehend the bonds that this…_family_ had. Much tighter than any other vampire coven; they'd gone through so much for each other. Their existence was laid out not around meals, but each other, and the family as a unit.

They didn't just exist; they _lived. _And more than that, they were _happy_. Me, I was a paranoid, nomadic loner. Murders on my conscience that I didn't regret, didn't even think about. I suddenly felt terribly inadequate. My existence as a vampire was so shallow, just catering to my needs and then covering my tracks. These vampires, this_ family_ of vampires, must have thought so little of me.

I had to get out of there.

"Well, I guess I'll be going. It was good to meet you all." I stood up abruptly and nodded to Esme and Carlisle, who stood against the wall together. "Nice place."

They smiled politely. Esme took a half step in my direction. She looked like she wanted to say something to me, but she didn't. I gave a half-smile to Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rose and ruffled Renesmee's hair. She touched my hand.

_You're going to be okay, Fred. We've all gone through inner turmoil. Even me, and I'm only eight months old._

Even _she_ could see I was suffering.

"Our doors are always open to you, Fred," Edward said quietly. "Come back whenever you need anything."

"Sure," I muttered abstractedly. I strode out the front door without looking at him.

Once outside, I ran around to the back of the house where the river gurgled. I breathed in the fresh, wet air. Where to?

_Where to?_ Could I really just ignore everything I'd heard and experienced in the last twenty-four hours?

I could try. What else could I do?

Numbly, I reached into my useless pack and pulled out the map. I crossed out the name of the town I'd visited the night before. No, visited was the wrong word. _Purged_. I'd raided the city of precious inhabitants for my own needs, which were not really needs anyway. I searched the map for a dot without a red slash over it. Then I lowered the thing, trembling.

Before today, I hadn't known any other way to live. I'd had no qualms about killing innocent people. Murder was just a part of who I was, _what_ I was. I hadn't known I could resist.

But what if, like Edward, I could fall in love with a human? What if I killed her before I got to know her? What if I'd already come across her and not noticed?

I couldn't take that chance again.

I raised the map up again, stretching it taut between my hands, then I pulled my hands down and apart. The map ripped cleanly in two. I raised the pieces and threw them into the river.

I took a deep breath. My life as a hunter was over. Never again would I kill a human.

"Quite symbolic, Fred," I heard an all-too-familiar voice say. "But Esme wouldn't want her river polluted."

Before I could even focus on him, Edward had dived into the river and retrieved the soggy pieces of the map. He climbed out and stood in front of me, dripping.

"You didn't tell us the whole story, did you?" he said gently, not demanding information, not prying like a therapist would, claiming it was for my own good. He was simply asking.

Oh, man, I was good. He hadn't noticed all the arrows in my head, pointing to my biggest secret.

"It's about your mother, isn't it?"

Maybe not.

He chuckled. "If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to."

But I did have to. It was like everything that had happened in the Cullens' big fancy hacienda was just a prelude to what I always knew I'd have to say. Something that I didn't want all of my new vampire acquaintances to know.

But I felt like I could trust Edward. He seemed different, even aside from the mind-reading. Now that he had me thinking about it, he as good as knew it, but he still asked me. He was letting me have my say.

So I'd have it.

I sighed, wondering where to start. "My mom was…she was like my anchor. I never wanted to stay in school, didn't want to go to college. But she always stayed right by me, making sure I did my homework and got to class. She encouraged me all the time, telling me I'd be glad of my education later.

"Despite that pushiness, I loved her. I loved her more than anyone else. I stayed for her, if not anything else. I went to college, and she helped me pay for it. But that wasn't enough. I lost my weekend job, and the money she sent got lost in the mail.

"When I got back home…we had a fight. One worse than we'd had in years. I don't really remember what I said to her, but I ended up walking out. I wanted to go back after a while, to apologize, but then Riley's gang found me.

"My transformation took almost four days, and by that time I'm sure she was worried out of her mind. I wanted to go back though, just to tell her that I was okay, but Riley wouldn't let me. I sneaked out anyway, and I made it to her house."

My voice caught in my throat. I couldn't go on. But I let the scene of that night play out in my mind, every detail crystal clear.

_I tried the door. Locked. I searched my pockets. Dang it, no key. I pushed on the door, hard. I heard the metallic_ chink_ as the lock broke. Oops. But the door was open, and I was in. _

_It was early evening, probably eight or nine. My mom would be washing dishes now. Sure enough, there was the sound of plates gently bumping each other in the sink. And the citrus-scented soap she always used on the dishes. _

_Whoa, I could smell that from _here?_ My nose was awesome! And—what was _that? _Was that scent _her?_ She smelled _so_ good. Even better than the humans I'd drank earlier tonight. I felt the clench of my muscles, the venom gathering in my mouth. _No.

_I'd thought that after drinking my way through five humans' blood, I would feel less thirsty. Maybe Riley was right. Maybe I couldn't handle this yet. But I had to talk to my mom. I _had_ to._

"_Fred?" I heard her voice, pretty for a human's, weave through the house. "Is that you?" I tried not to breathe too hard. I had to concentrate. _

"_Yeah, Mom. I…I'm back." And I'm a vampire now._

"_Oh, Freddie!" She rushed out of the kitchen—she was so _slow!_—and stopped dead when she saw me._

_She looked exactly like she had before. Same simple, ill-fitting clothes. Same wavy hair, the same color as mine, tied in a knot. Same weathered hands. Same bracelet she always wore on her left wrist. Same kind face._

_I was the one who had changed—vastly and irreversibly._

_She took in my new appearance, my white skin, my absolutely still figure, my bright red eyes. I looked down, trying to hide my venom-filled irises._

"_Fred, what happened to you?"_

_I took a breath through my mouth, trying to ignore the temptation I felt when I tasted her. "I can't tell you."_

"_Of course you can! You can tell me anything. Did somebody hurt you?"_

"_Ye—no. I'm…going away. I probably won't come back. If anybody asks about me, tell them I'm fine, but do_ not_ tell them I looked like this."_

"_Fred, why can't you stay? I want you to."_

"_I'm dangerous," I mumbled. "You can't trust me anymore."_

"_What did they do to you?" she whispered, stepping forward. I knew what she was going to do, like she had a million times. She was trying to gather me into her arms, hug me until all my hurt was gone. But this time it wouldn't help. I still wouldn't be able to stay with her. I would still be a vampire. And I couldn't have her hug me. I didn't think I could handle that. _

_She was still taking her first step toward me. I took a breath, ready to tell her not to._

"_Mom—"_

_I stiffened. Her scent… It was so overwhelming. So sweet. So luscious. So _tasty_._

_I couldn't even try to resist. My mind shut down and I lunged for her. My hands closed around her upper arms, and I heard both her humerus bones snap. I felt my teeth break her delicate skin, felt her blood spill from the wound I'd made in her neck. I sucked in hungrily, ignoring her whimpers of pain and disbelief. _

_When she ran dry, I dropped her to the ground. Somehow, there was still a little life in her. She groaned, trying to focus on me. "Fre…"_

_The light in her eyes winked out. I blinked rapidly, staring down at my mom. Her corpse. Her drained, lifeless body. I just stood there, looking down at her for a while as I slowly came back to my senses. I realized what I had done. I…I had killed my mom. _

_Ho-ly cow._

_I didn't keep track of how long I was there, staring at her still face, hating myself. When I finally looked up, I noticed the familiar clock next to the kitchen doorway read three o' clock. I knew I had to get away from windows before the sun rose, and my mom's house didn't have a basement. _

_I went into my room, detecting my own scent, minus the vampire-part. I spied my college backpack hanging over a chair—Mom had bought it for me only a few months ago. I picked it up and slung it across my shoulders. I gathered up a few of my favorite books and dumped them in. I went back downstairs, where my mother, still motionless on the floor, waited._

_I knew what I had to do, but I didn't know if I was capable of it. Could I really throw my mom, the only person I'd ever cared for, to a horrible, watery grave? She didn't deserve that. Especially since it was my fault she was dead._

_Then I heard something outside. Not a human. Another vampire. Riley. He peered through the front window of my mom's house. Catching sight of my mother's body on the floor, he gave me an oh-my-gosh-what-did-you-do-I-will-kill-you-for-thi s look. I stared back at him, my face expressionless. Riley let himself in and tried to tow me out._

"_Come on. I'll go put her in the sound, and then we'll go to the house."_

_Without looking at him, I sent a wave of revulsion in his direction. He cringed but bent down to grab my mom. Her empty eyes stared at me. _

"_Come on, Fred. I will _not_ let you become a crispy. Forget about her. You wouldn't have been able to see her anyway."_

_I took a deep breath. Could I do it? I closed my eyes and in my mind let my new skill wash away the horror of the night. She wasn't my mother. It was just another human—just another fragile little snack. I looked up at last, into Riley's shining red eyes._

"_Okay."_

_I knew I would never forget this, but I could try. I followed Riley out of my mom's house, thinking only of the vampires I was going to be cooped up with very soon._

_We took off running down the dark streets._

_When we reached the sound, I reached for my mom. Maybe it _would_ be better if I buried her._

"_No, Fred. I'll do it. With the state you're in, you might not do it properly and she'll come back up." He hoisted her up over his shoulder, so her upper body dangled across his back. _

_As her arm slid down, something fell off of it. I leaned forward and caught it with my lightning-fast reflexes before it plopped in the water. _

_It was her bracelet. I'd bought it for her when I was ten, and she'd worn it ever since. It was very plain, just a thin gold band with a single gemstone, I'd forgotten what kind, hanging from it._

_My fist closed around it, and I pocketed the thing._

"_Fred. What is that?"_

"_Just something that was my mom's." I showed him._

_Riley shrugged. "Just don't let the others see it. They'd rip you and each other apart for that."_

_I nodded, unable to speak anymore. Riley dived gracefully into the water, drenching me with a _splash.


	9. A Farewell

**Wasn't that last chapter fun? Action, for once! But now we're back to boring old dialogue. At least dialogue is easier. IMHO, writing thoughts is easiest, dialogue almost as easy. But action? Kill me.**

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><p>A Farewell<p>

I broke off from the memory. I did not want to stand on the edge of the water again and watch Riley crush my mom's body under a rock. We'd gone back to our safe house after that, where I shunned all company and did nothing but read.

I looked back up at Edward. He was staring at nothing, his mind fully concentrated on me.

"Don't you see? That's why you all made me feel so terrible. You—you're so in control that you could be in love with a _human_. Next to that, I'm pathetic . I couldn't even resist my _mom_. Don't you understand, Edward? I killed her. I killed my own mother!"

"I know, Fred. It can be terribly hard to live with guilt."

"He would know." Bella's voice rang out from behind Edward. She stepped forward and smiled wryly at her mate. "He's been feeling guilty since he met me. Guilty for almost killing me the day we met. Guilty for talking to me, putting me in danger. Guilty for not talking to me. Guilty for staying. Guilty for leaving. Guilty for not changing me. Guilty for changing me. Guilt, guilt, guilt!" She slapped her fist into her palm. "But all he needed was for someone to tell him it was okay."

"My mom can't do that," I said brokenly. I almost wished that I could produce tears, so excruciating was my pain. "She's dead. Weren't you listening?"

"I didn't hear much," she smirked. "But I know enough that you didn't mean to kill her. You just made a mistake. We all do that."

She grinned suddenly, at a memory. "On my first hunt, I was on the trail of an animal, but I caught the scent of a stray human. It turned me into a wild, bloodthirsty beast."

"Did you kill anybody?" I asked her. Probably not.

"No," she said. "But if I was alone, like you were, I would have.

"When Renesmee was born, she was very strong, too strong for my human body. Edward had to work very quickly to change me before I died.

"Nessie knows what she did—in essence, she killed her mother, too—and she can't change it. But she was just a baby; she didn't know any better and couldn't really help it. Anyone can make a mistake, especially a newborn of any kind."

Huh.

"I didn't tell you my whole story, either," Edward said suddenly. "About ten years after I was changed, I went off on my own. I hunted humans."

Had all the yellow-eyes been hunters at one time? I could understand why they hadn't said anything about that.

"Not all of us," Edward answered. "But I did. I hunted humans for over two years. However, I began to have conviction, like you. I understood why Carlisle and Esme lived the way they did. I recommitted.

"I regret that time in my life, but I still live. You can't tear yourself up over what you've done."

"He's one to talk," Bella snorted. "But he's right. We all have regrets. We can't take our actions back, but we can try to make up for them."

I had never heard it put so plainly before. The only comfort I'd ever been offered for killing my mom was from Riley:

"_Jeez, Riley, I killed my own mom! Wouldn't it bother you if _you_ killed someone close to you?"_

"_Never had somebody close. But just think about it this way: she's a human. She would have died soon anyway. You're a _god_. You're going to live _forever_. If it makes you feel better, I'll tell everyone _I_ did it." _

"_That won't change anything. Nobody else cares about their family either. You know what? Just drop it. I'll never bring it up again."_

That attempted counseling session had just forced me deeper into my shell. But this time, I'd been told exactly what I needed to hear. I knew what I could do.

"Thank you. That was just what I needed. You… you've been a big help to me. All of you."

"Good luck, Fred," Bella said, and then she did something that seemed completely out of character: She stepped forward and squeezed me lightly around the neck. I stood stock-still for a moment, then hugged her back. She let go and backed up next to Edward, looking surprised and abashed at her own nerve.

"Best wishes." Edward held out his hand. I took it.

"Bye."

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><p><strong>So now that this is done, I have an end in mind. Wow, strange, a few days ago, I really just wanted to get this finished. Now I wish I had more ideas so I could keep writing. Curses.<strong>

**But there's a bright side to everything: Soon no one will have to be bothered by my writing anymore!**

**Thank you for reading KylerM.**


	10. A Beginning

**I do believe this is the last chapter! Short, sweet, and hopefully resounding.**

**I tried to make you, the reader, smile.**

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><p>A Beginning<p>

I ran like the wind, deeper and deeper into the woods, until I couldn't see the Cullens' house anymore. Whatever I was doing, I needed complete privacy.

I closed my eyes, re-exploring that terrible night when I'd last seen my mom. After Riley had dumped her in the water, I'd run out of the city, crossed the sound, and had come a little ways into the woods. Desperate to establish some type of closure, I'd buried the bracelet I'd salvaged from my mother's body in a lame makeshift memorial. An unmarked grave containing not her body, but her most prized possession.

My scent was stale, barely there anymore, as I neared Seattle. Thankfully, few people ventured into the thick woods across the sound from the city.

Following my year-old scent and my memories of the trees, I rooted around in the ground until I found my mother's bracelet, tarnished and filthy.

I made my way back to the sound and cleaned the bracelet in the murky water. Now that it was reasonably clean, I attached it to a single chain I'd kept hanging around my neck. I held it up, examining its every microscopic detail.

"I won't bury you in my past. You're with me now. Always." I really had gone crazy now, I mused, tucking the bracelet under my shirt. Talking to jewelry.

But it seemed to me that, somewhere, someone who mattered had heard me.

"Love you, Mom."

I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes. _A new beginning._ I set off running at breakneck pace, filled with hope and happiness.

Where I would go, I wasn't sure. Roam like before, probably. But I'd meet others, make friends now, only using my talent in situations of immediate danger.

And I wouldn't hunt humans.

Maybe I'd find a mate, or start a coven like Carlisle. Maybe I'd go to Italy and meet the Volturi with allies at my side, ready to avenge Bree. Or maybe I'd just settle down and start back to college, like a normal human being would.

The future, for once, was full of possibilities.

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><p><strong>And there it is! That's all we want, isn't it? Possibilities.<strong>

**Maybe Fred will have another adventure; maybe he won't. But what really matters is that he has gained the potential to _have_ new adventures.**

**I suppose in a way the ending's happy. But really what I wanted was a _hopeful_ ending. Just something that makes the reader finish feeling happy, and something that _could_ be continued. Hopefully (no pun intended) the "hopeful" ending was worth suffering through my bad writing. If you made it to the bitter end, kudos! And many, many thanks.**

**So...story finished on June 26, 2013. Is that two years after I started? I'm so slow! Anyway, today's my...well, my special day. I guess I gave _myself_ a present this year, huh?**

**Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for reading KylerM.**

**The End.**


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